Chavez Micro-Managed National Baseball Team

Just like he micro-managed and meddled in Venezuela’s economy and society, Hugo Chavez also tried to micro-manage the national baseball team.

Before Venezuela’s 14-10 win over the New York Mets in a Wednesday exhibition game, national team manager Luis Sojo said Hugo Chavez used to wake him in the middle of the morning to question his decisions in the game the day before.

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“A lot of times, I’d get a phone call at seven in the morning – and I like to sleep,” Sojo said of the leftist tyrant “After the games in the WBC, he used to call me. He loved baseball, and he knows everybody – he knows all the guys that I used to have on the team. That was my relationship with him.”

Sojo added that “the president was not above nitpicking over in-game strategy” and questioned Sojo’s in-game decisions.

“He said, ‘how come you didn’t bring Francisco Rodriguez in?’ I said, ‘he’s the closer! I can’t pitch him in the fourth,'” Sojo said of a game in which the national team blew a lead in the fourth inning.

Chavez died on Tuesday due to cancer. Venezuela opens World Baseball Classic play in Puerto Rico against the Dominican Republic on Thursday.